On Tuesday, Female Founders Fund (FFF) filed with the SEC to start raising $75 million for its fourth fund, TechCrunch+ exclusively reports.
That amount is the biggest yet from FFF: Fund I was $6 million, and Fund II was $25 million. In 2021, it closed an oversubscribed $57 million for Fund III, which saw Goldman Sachs, Pivotal Ventures, and Plexo Capital come on as limited partners.
TechCrunch reported at the time that FFF’s assets under management were over $95 million; if it hits its target amount for the fourth fund, it would increase AUM to well over $150 million, keeping FFF as one of the largest early-staged funds, specifically for women.
Anu Duggal, a founding partner at FFF, did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
The Fund was founded in 2014 to back female-founded companies at an early stage. It focuses on everything from climate tech to healthcare, generative AI, and science-backed lifestyle companies. This fourth fund represents its commitment to investing in women; teams founded by all women constantly receive around 2% of all venture capital in any given year, though mixed-gender teams are seeing an uptick in funding.
When broken down by race, the amount of funding to women drops; for example, Black women receive less than 1% of all venture capital dollars. When Fund III was announced, Duggal said it heavily invested in women of color, with check sizes ranging from $750,000 to $1 million; half the fund was reserved for follow-on funding. It’s safe to assume that, as the numbers for women and women of color have hardly moved since 2021, Fund IV will follow a similar investment strategy.
Overall, FFF has backed more than 100 companies, including astrology app Co-Star and healthcare company Peanut, according to PitchBook. The $75 million raise is a bright spot in a venture bubble where women are mostly ignored and overlooked. It follows the trend TechCrunch previously noted of how more women-led firms seem to have raised a lot of money in the slowdown year that has been 2023. This was due to many reasons, including the steadily mounting pressure for LPs to back more women. Time will tell as to whether these power players are still listening.
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